Jigging for Pan Fish on the Hard Water –

Some days out on the ice it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, but other days you need to work hours and hours for a few small fish.  In this piece, I connect the information from my previous article on electronics and share some of the best lures/jigs and rod and reel set-ups to use on the hard water.  Hopefully, the combination of the two articles will make your next hard water outing like shooting  fish in a barrel.

Be Mobile –

In my opinion, depth is the most important component when ice fishing.  I am not talking about fishing for crappie and perch in 110 feet of water.  I mean finding fish in 14.5 feet of water rather then 16 feet of water.  It may sound absurd that 18 inches of water will make a difference in catching fish,  but believe me, it does!  Two weeks ago, I was at my favorite fishing hole and we decided to try a part of the lake that we had never explored.  We drilled well over 150 holes, worked over 2 miles of shoreline, and every single hole we drilled looked amazing!  The bottom was mucky with a little bit of weeds in 20-22 feet of water.  Perch heaven!  However, we never marked more than 2 or 3 fish in an area the size of an acre.  We worked for 7 hours and finally, just before we called it a day, we found the perch stacked up in 14-15 feet of water and it all made sense.  They ONLY wanted a mucky bottom with NO weeds!  There were no rocks or gravel around, just mud and they were eating the insects that burrow in the mud.  For 2 hours, we played catch and release with nice jack perch and rainbow trout.  It was just like shooting fish in a barrel.

If we were not mobile, we never would have found those fish and would have missed out on one of our best days on the ice.  I’ve seen too many guys sitting on a bucket for 8 hours straight, unwilling to move and try to find fish even though the perch are stacked up 20 yards away from them.  When you do find fish, quickly make the area “Swiss cheese”.  That means drill 8-12 holes in a small 30 ft. by 30 ft. area.  This allows you to hole-hop when your hole goes cold and still be on top of the school.  For bluegills this time of year, find 6-14 F.O.W.(feet of water) with weeds and a nearby drop-off and you will catch fish.  The “gills” are usually eating insects and small frie this time of the year.  Never overlook a small jigging rapala for large bluegills.  Do yourself a favor and get a topographical map of the lake and study it.  Using a topo will help put you on fish right away.  Otherwise ,you might end up walking around all day trying to find fish like when we forgot the topo last week!

Rods -
Here is a picture of seven of my personal ice fishing set -ups.  They range from 1lb. test to 6 lb. test.  There are several factors that influence which set-up I use: water clarity, how much the fish are feeding, and depth of water I am fishing.

My personal favorite is 3 lb. test.  It will hold up against a 20-inch spinning rainbow and large jack perch, but is also small enough in diameter that it will not spook the fish.  The shallower the water I fish, the lighter the line.
0-10 F.O.W. 1 or 2lb. test
10-20 F.O.W. 3 to 5 lb. test
20+ 5 and 6 lb. test.

I am a big fan of medium action jig sticks with light tips and a spring bobber on the end with a 5 ball bearing spinning reel.  The reels I use have a very smooth drag system so when you hook into a larger fish, you will have the backbone on the rod to set the hook and make it stick.  The best reel I have found thus far is a Gander Mountain GSA 05.  I run six of those right now and love every one of them.  The best rod I have found is the St Croix Premier Ice.  The St. Croix rods are a little pricey, but they are worth their weight in gold when it comes to sensitivity and backbone.

Jigs and Lures –

There is no such thing as too many jigs and lures.  Here is a picture of my pan fish jigs.

 
Do I always use all of these?  No.  Do I use a lot of them?  Yes.  I always have one DIFFERENT jig or lure tied on to all of my rods before I get to the lake.  When I figure out what the fish want, I dial in the correct color, size, weight, how many spikes they want, or wax worms.

When fish get finicky, there are several jigs I use as my “go to” jigs.

The 4 on the left are called “Jammin Jigs” and the one on the right is the popular fairy jig.  When these jigs are tipped with one spike or mousse, they can be absolutely deadly.  I  never fish a jig unless it is a glowing jig.  There is no doubt in my mind that the glow works!  Picture what a regular jig looks like to a fish in 15-20 FOW when there is snow cover.  It stops a lot of light penetration, especially during the low light hours or overcast days.  Now picture that same jig glowing.  To state that it can be seen more easily is an understatement!  If you are fishing for suspended crappie at night, glow lures are a must!

During morning and evening bites or just before a low pressure system, when fish are in a feeding frenzy and very active, these are the jigs I use.

Jigging Spoons, Buckshot Spoons (Rattles), Genz Spoons, and Jigging Rapalas are huge.  I prefer to put a spike on each hook, especially on the jigging rapala.  There is only one reason that I use the larger spoons when the bite it hot.  It is heavier and gets down the hole faster!  The active fish will still hit the smaller jigs, but they take forever to get down the hole.  The larger jigs will get down faster and typically target the bigger fish in the school.

This was a quick blast through jigging for perch and bluegills.  If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact me via PM or leave your comments on the blog and I will help you out as much as I can.

Hudson Valley Pro-Staff Member
Jay Rowe
Hard Water Nut.

One photo courtesy of Ice fishing central.